Movie Reviews - Page 2

Director Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2will be ten years old in June. It's an important movie for fans of the superhero genre -- the first movie in this present generation to be "good", rather than "good, but..." The commitment, pathos, and unabashed joy in Sam Raimi's sequel made it nearly everyone's favorite superhero movie -- until The Dark Knight, or Avengers, or Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Now there's another Spider-Man 2, an "Amazing" one, the second movie in director Marc Webb's reboot for Sony's Columbia Pictures. It is definitely not more amazing than Spider-Man 2. It is resolutely and in every way a sequel to 2012's Amazing Spider-Man, for better and for worse.

When the first Captain America movie came out in 2011, the character seemed like a tough sell. His earnest patriotism felt dated to many and was alienating to some.

Marvel Studios has made a habit of landing tough sells. Neither Iron Man nor Thor were the obvious calls that they look like in retrospect, while the plan to tie the characters together in The Avengers was an ambitious gamble. Yet if Marvel ever has any doubts, it never shows in their movies. As Captain America returns to the screen in The Winter Soldier, Marvel Studios has never looked more confident.

There is a new Batman movie coming out in theaters this weekend, and it's easily the best Batman movie yet. It's also a great sci-fi movie, and a great Western, and a great Matrix remake, and it's especially a great comedy.

But first and foremost, it's a Lego movie. And it's the Lego movie. It does everything you want a Lego movie to do. And that's awesome.

If you boiled down Marvel's movies to a basic formula, the first Thor film would be a perfect example of it. It's got some decent superhero action, a lot of shoehorned-in S.H.I.E.L.D. stuff, and one huge feather in its cap: A sense of humor about itself and its characters.

Luckily, the new sequel, Thor: The Dark World, is like its predecessor in that it's not afraid to include some levity. As long as that keeps up, it's a jaunty, enjoyable flick. It's only when the movie gets capital-s Serious -- and luckily that's not too often -- that it gets into some trouble.

So, what family obligation will you be ignoring to watch Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.tonight? Well, ComicsAlliance gives you permission to ignore the guilt: wedding anniversaries happen all the time; greatest moments in television history only happen once every fifteen years. To celebrate the newest greatest moment in television history, we hereby present our review of the original one: 1998's television film Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., written by David S. Goyer and starring the greatest actor in television history, the one and only David Hasselhoff. Read on if you can handle all the greatness.

That's not being unrealistic, is it? I mean, when you hear that there's going to be a Wolverine movie based, however loosely, on the 1982 Wolverine miniseries by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, you go into the theater expecting a few things to happen. I wasn't really looking for a specific number or anything, but if you'd asked me going in, I would've told you that my most important expectation for this movie was that Wolverine was going to kill a number of ninjas that was greater than zero. when the ninjas actually do show up about 20 minutes before the end, I figured it was finally time to pay off, but nope. Never happened. In that respect, I'm sorry to tell you that The Wolverine did not meet my expectations.

If you like Superman movies that we already have, then I imagine you have the best chance of being entertained by Man of Steel. That's really the nicest thing I can say about it, and I say it because when you get right down to it, most of the considerable mistakes that made Man of Steel downright unbearable for me were made in those, too. In that respect, it's really just the latest installment of The Adventures of Terrible Movie Superman.

Chris Sims: Hello everyone, and welcome back to our close examination of DOA: Dead Or Alive, a movie about a fighting tournament and also sexy volleyball. So far, it has been a modern classic.

Matt Wilson: I would hesitate to say that. Classics tend to have things like memorable acting and compelling plots. This has been something more along the lines of a really fun collection of crazy clips.Chris: You're such a hipster. When we last left off, sexy volleyball had devolved into a sword fight in a bamboo forest, so now it's time for the movie to pick up one of its three or four dangling subplots and see if there's anything to it. Specifically, Max and Christie's plan to rob DOA Island of a cool hundred million, using Helena's tattoos as a key.

Chris Sims: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to our series of in-depth reviews focusing on movies based on fighting games. This week, we're starting in on DOA: Dead Or Alive, a movie that truly has everything, if you consider "everything" to be "scantily clad women and Kevin Nash." Which I do.

Matt Wilson: This is the first time I'm going to dispute our use of the word "depth." Generally, it's accurate, but with this movie, I think it's basically impossible.

Chris Sims: Welcome back for the second round of our in-depth review of 1995's Mortal Kombat! When we last left off, things had finally gotten interesting when Scorpion and Johnny Cage had a fight so intense that one of them exploded twice...

Welcome back to Comics Alliance

It appears that you already have an account created within our VIP network of sites on .
To keep your personal information safe, we need to verify that it's really you.
To activate your account, please confirm your password.
When you have confirmed your password, you will be able to log in through Facebook on both sites.

Welcome back to Comics Alliance

It appears that you already have an account on this site associated with . To connect your existing account just click on the account activation button below. You will maintain your existing VIP profile. After you do this, you will be able to always log in to http://comicsalliance.com using your original account information.